


Alone, Finally

by Vevici



Series: DA prompt fics [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 06:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18138773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vevici/pseuds/Vevici
Summary: The title of Inquisitor bears down on Danae Lavellan's shoulders, and the weight is too much. But she is alone in a castle that housed her growing army.





	Alone, Finally

**Author's Note:**

> part of micro story prompt: alone, finally

One of the worst things Danae could have was silence. Absolute silence that spoke of a disturbance, something watching, waiting, perhaps even something sinister. If quiet fell over Clan Lavellan, then someone had passed into the beyond or someone had been injured, for there was nothing else that could put a halt to daily life. Then there was the kind of silence that was not life threatening, though it twisted Danae’s stomach just the same.

             There was no silence to be had now; not since the explosion of the conclave, not since that snowy night when all that passed her ears were the crunch of snow under her boots and the drum of her heart against her broken ribs. There was only reports and requisitions, petitions and orders, deals and threats.

             Herald, we need a horsemaster. Herald, our scouts are missing. Inquisitor, we need to find the mages. No, Inquisitor, we need the Templars. But inquisitor, we don’t have enough resources. No, Inquisitor, we must talk to the Chantry first. Inquisitor, Orlais must not fall into Corypheus’ hands.

             To the Void with Orlais!

             Danae jerked, eyes snapping to her fist on the table, then up to three pairs of eyes staring at her. There was silence then. With a shaky breath, Danae clamped a hand over her mouth.

             “Perhaps a break is needed,” Josephine said, almost a whisper in the large room that looked out onto snow-capped mountains.

             Danae shot out her seat, barely sidestepping Cassandra, whose eyebrows were still raised, and barged through the doors. The two guards snapped their hands to their foreheads with a quick “Inquisitor.”

             Danae didn’t look at them, and a part of her stung with guilt. She would apologize for her brusque manner later, to the guards and to her advisers. But not now.

             The throne room buzzed with murmurs and laughter, clinked with glasses and silverware. Where all these people came from she knew not, why they were still here she couldn’t understand. She resented their presence all the same.

             “Oh, Inquisitor!” A voice piped, nasal and thick. “A quick word, Inquisitor? I was hoping—”

             They weren’t hoping; they were expecting. Danae steered toward the large chair up on the dias, which none dared to approach within five feet as though guarded by a barrier.  She passed in front of it, the huge luxurious wooden throne that was supposed to be hers, and her feet quickened. She kept her eyes on the door just before the fireplace near the entrance of the hall, her left hand pressed on the stone wall whose coldness soothed the burning stares of nobles on her skin.

             “Herald!” Another voice called, a man. But Danae ignored him.

             Varric’s eyes raised from his crossbow then and landed perfectly on hers.

             “Herald, please, I need but a moment to discuss the estate…”

             A human estate that treated the People as a resource. Six paces more and her hand would latch onto the door’s handle. Somewhere behind, the man kept talking about some lord or other encroaching on some land she had never heard of. Ahead, Varric began to lean Bianca against the wall. Danae half jogged; she wanted to run, to just bolt up the stairs and into her room, but she knew she shouldn’t. It would reflect badly on the Inquisition, it would offend their allies. Her ears offended enough as it was.

             So she half jogged, swallowing the growing lump in her throat even as she blinked moisture from her eyes. The murmurs in the hall changed, now. Softer, more heated, flurried. Varric stood from his seat by the fire, gave a wink as he brushed pass her to step directly in front of man still calling for her. That shut him up.

             Danae’s hand wrapped around cold iron and she pushed before the latch could completely come off. The door thudded close as she braced a hand against it while the other pried one boot, then the other from aching feet. She tossed them aside and took the stairs two at a time. The wind whistled a low moaning tune up overhead, where missing stones on the wall have not been replaced, and fluttered the red banner hung over the first rise, making its wooden hold clack against stone. She ripped that down and threw it on the floor too.

             The bang of her door echoed in her high room. Tall balcony doors let light wash the linear pattern on the navy carpet that softened the area where her bed lay, though it blocked the howling wind of the mountains. Closing her eyes, Danae counted to ten, then backwards to one, then to ten once again, until she hardly heard her breath.

             She sat on the ground, her back against the door, and just closed her eyes. This was the kind of silence that was not life threatening, though it twisted Danae’s stomach just the same. Yet she preferred this now over her daily life.

             Alone, finally.


End file.
